Transcript The Cutting Edge of Technology

Lecture 9
The Cutting Edge
of Technology
8.1 The Pace Of Technological
Change
8.2 The Technology
Production Function
8.3 Differential Technological
Progress
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本章重难点
•
掌握技术进步生产函数的含义
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科技改变生活
• I believe that the motion picture is destined to
revolutionize our educational system and that in a
few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the
use of textbooks.（我相信，电影必定对我们的
教育体系带来革命性的影响，并且在未来几年
内，即使不是全部，也将大大地取代教科书）
•
——Thomas Edison, 1922
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Cutting Edge of Technology
• “Cutting edge of technology” refers to new
techniques that are just moving out of development
and into production.
• Cutting-edge technologies hold great promise for
higher productivity, although they are not guaranteed
to work（尽管不能确保有效，前沿技术带来提高
生产力的希望）
• quantum computing（量子计算）, gene therapy（
基因治疗）, and supercapacitors（超级电容器）.
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Cutting Edge of Technology
• Cutting edge of technology is always changing.
One characteristic of cutting edge technologies is
that they do not remain that way for long（不会
长久保持前沿位置）
• The era of rapid technological progress dates back
only 250 years in the most advanced countries.
Before this period, technological advance was slow
and sporadic. （250年前的技术进步很缓慢且零
星）
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8.1 The Pace of Technological Change
• Technological Progress before the 18th Century
• The Industrial Revolution
• Technological Progress since the Industrial
Revolution
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Technological Progress before the 18th
Century
• 中国古代四大发明：
• 1、造纸。蔡伦，太监，15岁入宫（公元75年）
。公元88年，因参与窦太后政争（帮着窦太后
诬陷他人）而位比九卿，秩俸2000石。102年任
尚方令。公元105年，将所造优质纸张事奏报朝
廷。125年，安帝亲政，蔡伦获罪自杀。
• 2、指南针。最早的指南针出现在战国时期。
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Technological Progress before the
18th Century
• 中国古代四大发明：
• 3、活字印刷。毕昇（约970年—1051年），中国古
代发明家，活字版印刷术发明者，生平不详。比德
国Johannes Gutenberg（1453，古腾堡）早400年。
沈括《梦溪笔谈·活版》：“庆历(1041—1048)中有
布衣毕昇，又为毕昇活板。其法用胶泥刻字，薄如
钱唇，每字为一印，火烧令坚。”
• 4、火药。唐朝（9世纪末）有了军用火药。火药最
初出现据称在战国时期-汉朝。
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Some Milestones of Technological
Progress
Food production (8500 b.c.)
Wheel (3400 b.c.)
Writing( around 3000 b.c.)
Padded horse collar （马鞍）—Invented in China around 250
b.c. and independently in Europe in the ninth century
Mechanical clock (around 1275)
Steam engine (1768)
Textile manufacture (second half of the 18th century)
Network electricity (last quarter of 19th cen-tury)
Mass production of automobiles (1908)—Henry Ford
Transistor (1947)晶体管
ARPANET (1969)阿帕网，互联网前身。最初连了4台主机。
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Technological Progress before the
18th Century
• 土地和劳动两种投入
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Growth Accounting for Europe,
A.D. 500–1700
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The Industrial Revolution
• The most significant turning point in the history of
technological progress was the Industrial Revolution,
which is generally dated between 1760 and 1830 in
Britain
• Textiles——the time required for a worker to spin one
pound of cotton into thread fell from 500 hours to
only 3. British production of cotton textiles rose by a
factor of 125 between 1770 and 1841, and prices
plummeted. As a consequence, the use of underwear
became common for the first time（内衣开始流行）
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The Industrial Revolution
• Energy —The steam engine. Between 1750 and
1850, British production of coal rose 10-fold.
Steam engines also revolutionized transportation,
beginning with Robert Fulton’s steamboat in 1807
and spreading later to railroads (the first steam
railway opened in 1825)
• Metallurgy—coal as a source of fuel in iron
smelting dramatically drove down the cost of iron
production。
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British Iron Production, 1600–1870
Source: Riden (1977).
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British Output and Productivity Growth, 1760–
1913
Source: Crafts (1996).
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The Industrial Revolution
• two observations—that growth during the
Industrial Revolution was not particularly fast and
that growth did not slow down when the
Industrial Revolution ended
• technologies introduced during the Industrial
Revolution were indeed revolutionary, but their
immediate impact on economic growth was small
• More significantly, the Industrial Revolution was a
beginning .
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The Industrial Revolution
• Economic historians identify a “Second Industrial
Revolution,” dated roughly 1860–1900, with
innovations in industries such as chemicals,
electricity, and steel.
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Technological Progress since the Industrial
Revolution
• high growth of total factor productivity lasting
from 1890 to 1971. During this remarkable period
,daily life in the most developed countries was
transformed more dramatically than ever before.
• dramatic reduction in the growth of productivity
starting in the early 1970s.
• starting in the mid-1990s, there was another
change in the trend.
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U.S. Output and Productivity Growth, 1870–
2007
Sources: Gordon (1999, 2010).
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8.2 The Technology Production Function
• genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine
percent perspiration.（天才等于1%的灵感加99%的
汗水）—Edison
• Over the period 1950–2007, the number of
researchers engaged in R&D in the G-5 countries
increased from 251,000 to 3.5 million—a factor of 14.
• The input to technological progress has grown
substantially over time, whereas the growth rate of
technology has not .
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8.2 The Technology Production
Function
• 上一讲中技术创新（技术生产函数）
• 两个假设
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The Relationship between Technology Level and the
Speed of Technological Progress
• “If I have seen farther than others, it is because I
have stood on the shoulders of giants.” ——
Newton
• The cumulative nature of technological progress
has both positive and negative effects on the ease
of doing R&D. fishing out effect
• dominant effect is the negative one of having
already made the easy discoveries
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Decreasing Returns to Scale in Technology
Production
• the growth rate of technology is simply proportional
to the number of people engaged in R&D
• For the technology production function, however, this
assumption of constant returns to scale is not
appropriate. Instead, this function is characterized by
decreasing returns to scale. These decreasing returns
to scale arise from the qualities of knowledge itself
that we discussed.
• duplication of effort重复劳动
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An Improved Version of The Technology
Production Function
• 原技术生产函数
• 钓鱼效应
• 规模报酬递减
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Implications for the Future of Technological
Progress
• Summarize ：First, as the level of technology
rises, finding new discoveries becomes ever
harder. Second, as the effort devoted to R&D
increases, the effectiveness of each new
researcher falls.
• Both of these modifications imply that everincreasing input into R&D will be required to
maintain the current speed of technological
progress.
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Implications for the Future of
Technological Progress
• maintaining the same rate of technological progress
over the next 57 years will require a similar 14-fold
increase in the number of researchers, from 3.5
million in 2007 to 49 million in 2064. Extending the
analysis further, the effort will require 686 million
researchers in 2121.
• The overall labor force could grow
• The fraction of the labor force engaged in research
could grow
• New members could be added to the set of countries
doing cutting-edge research
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Table 9.2 U.S. Patents and Patents per Million
Residents, 2010
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Predicting Technological Progress
• Too Optimistic
• 50 years hence . . . we shall escape the absurdity
of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the
breast or wing, by growing these parts separately
under a suitable medium.
• —Winston Churchill, British statesman, 1932
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Predicting Technological Progress
• Too Pessimistic
• There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear]
energy will ever be obtainable.
• —Albert Einstein, physicist, 1932
• By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the
Internet’s impact on the economy has been no
greater than the fax machine’s.
• —Paul Krugman, economist, 2000
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Moore’s Law as Seen in Intel Microprocessors
Source: Intel Corporation.
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8.3 Differential Technological Progress
• The pace of technological progress is radically
different in various sectors of the economy
• These differential changes in productive
technology are reflected in changes in the relative
prices of goods. Goods where there has been a lot
of productivity growth have become cheap
relative to goods where technological advance has
been slow.
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8.3 Differential Technological Progress
• Technological progress is more important when it
occurs in a larger sector.
• the average rate of technological progress for the
economy as a whole will be a weighted average of
the rates of progress in the different sectors of the
economy
• What happens to the fraction of the economy
made up by a given sector when that sector
experiences technological progress?
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Differential Technological Progress:
Two Theoretical Examples
• Example 1: Bread and Cheese.面包和奶酪互补品。
假设面包产业生产率每年提高2%，而奶酪生产率
不变。面包行业的生产资源将转移到奶酪行业。
长期下去，面包产业利用的资源非常少，整个经
济的增长为零。
• Example 2: Butter and Margarine.天然奶油和人造奶
油完全替代。假设后者生产率每年提高2%，而前
者不变。起初，假设天然奶油更便宜，因而经济
技术每增长。随后，人造奶油技术进步，价格下
降，只生产人造奶油，整个经济的技术增长率等
于人造奶油技术增长率。
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Conclusions from the Examples
• The key difference between these two examples is
in what happens to the share of spending devoted
to the sector with rapid technological progress.
• If the fraction of income spent on the sectors with
rapid technological growth rises over time, the
overall growth rate of technology will also rise. If
the share spent on these sectors falls, the overall
rate of growth of technology will fall.
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Technological Progress in the Real World:
Goods versus Services
• Production methods for goods (i.e., manufacturing)
have been one of the most technologically dynamic
areas in the economy. By contrast, the production
processes for many of the services we consume have
changed little over the last century.
• Total amount of spending in these two areas: In the
United States,the fraction of total onsumption
devoted to services rose from 40% in 1950 to 67% in
2010.
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Technological Progress in the Real World:
Information Technology
• People are getting more and better computers,
cell phones, and so on, but the prices of these
goods are falling, so it is not clear whether the
total amount of spending on computers will rise,
fall, or stay constant.
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Price of Computers, 1982–2010
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, National Income and Product Accounts, Table 1.5.4. Includes both computers and peripherals.
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Investment in Computers as a Percentage of
GDP, 1982–2009
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, National Income and Product Accounts, Table 5.5.5. Includes both computers and peripherals.
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